Bilingual Legislation

December 23rd, 2020 by James Goudie KC

Welsh language legislation is considered in R ( Driver) v Rhondda Cynon Taff CBC (2020) ECCA Civ 1759, at paragraphs 11/12. The best approach to the interpretation where different language texts have different meanings, and where it is not possible to reach an interpretation consistent with the literal meaning of both language versions, is to discern the legislative intention by reference to the purposes or objects of the legislation as they appear from the texts, rather than by searching for a shared meaning. The Court should apply normal principles of statutory interpretation to its analysis of the meaning of both texts equally.

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